The Tale of the ice-cold Demon
by ravel queen
Summary: There is a tale. A tale about a demon without blood or tears. A demon encased in a prison as icy as his heart.


_There is a tale._

"Eh? What was that?" Blaine asks.

"Oh, haven't you heard the tale about the ice-cold demon?" the old woman looks up with a small frown.

_A tale about a demon without blood or tears._

"Well, of course I have, but I always thought," he waves a hand, only just stopping himself from hitting the produce hanging from the stall, "that it was an old wives tale. Meant to scare children."

"No, " her eyes widen, "it is very, very real. Have you never noticed that travelers that go that way never come back."

_A demon encased in a prison as icy as his heart._

"But maybe they just got to where they wanted to go. It's not like there is a big reason to come back to our village." he looks down, away from the pitying smile on her face. The one everyone is wearing around him, since - . Since.

"Oh dear, some of them may have. But enough of them were out to prove their bravery or whatever silly notion drives those adventurer types and gone to the demon's cave." she says, taking his money, "if you want proof, there is even still the stone with the engraving the priests made to keep people from entering the forest at the edge of the forest."

_Cold claws and a beautiful face that led thousands into ruin._

Blaine takes his vegetables and turns away from her awful smile. He wishes they didn't try to make him feel _better_, because it doesn't help, it never does. It just makes everything worse. He has been buying his vegetables from her stall for years and she was never anything but confrontational and short-tempered with him. And suddenly, she wants to engage him in _conversation_.

Of course he knows about the huge stone at the edge of the village proclaiming that a demon sleeps in the caves beyond the forest, warning everyone of the danger, of the death that surely awaits anyone who comes too close. About how they had captured him and sealed him into ice for all eternity

_Trapped until the eternal ice around him finally melts._

He just never cared one way or the other if the story was true. What was it to him, after all? But now, he...wonders.

"Maybe I'll check out that stone after all." It's better than just staying in his lonely house, dreading the sounds of footsteps of people just "happening to pass by".

He finds himself still thinking about it weeks later, agonizing about that little road into the woods. He wastes whole afternoons just sitting at the lake and staring at the mountains. And he _wonders_.

The curiosity eats him alive. He asks everyone who holds still long enough, if they had ever _seen_ this demon, if anyone ever had. The townspeople give him _very_ strange looks, because word gets around fast in these parts.

At least it makes the pity disappear, at least people start being uncomfortable around him, because he wants to know if they thought the demon ever got lonely or just plain _bored_ and not because they just couldn't stand being around him longer than they have to be.

"Blaine you have to stop this." Trent says to him one evening, after he'd just come back from the lake. "People are starting to really worry."

He is in a strange mood, because he spent the afternoon really contemplating what it would mean to be alone, completely _alone_ for as long as the demon had been. _Centuries_, with only his own thoughts as company. He shudders. He wouldn't be surprised if the demon had gone insane just from loneliness alone.

It hit too close to home, making him reluctant to go home to his house. So he gets caught up in the rainstorm that had been threatening for a week now.

"Why would they worry?" he asks, toweling his hair and frowning at the curls he can just see at the edge of his vision.

"Asking all those questions about the demon?" Trent answers incredulously, "That isn't exactly normal behavior especially for you. And-" he hesitates- "staying out so long in the cold, even getting caught up in the rain. It's not good for you. In your condition -" Blaine slams his hand on table.

"Enough. I got rained on a bit, it has happened before. It has nothing to do with anything. And" he takes a deep breath, looking away from Trent and the awful, awful sadness in his eyes, "it's not like it changes anything, and you know it."

Trent leaves soon after, driving away by the stark reality Blaine's hacking coughs represent. It is that night, thunder outside that Blaine makes the decision to just _leave_. He'd spent his whole life being mindful of others, careful and it was time to do something for himself, something reckless and _stupid_. If not now, then when.

He packs his bags, unpacks them, packs them again. Then he thinks of the way Tracy from the farm told him about that adventurer, the one who gave her flowers, just never came back with an awful look in her eyes and in the end just takes a light satchel with a few necessities.

He had written several long letters, weeks before now and he leaves his keys with a note on the kitchen table, steps out of his house and sets out onto that road before the sun even rises in the sky.

It brings him here, to the entrance of the cave. He has heard enough stories to be sure it's this one, with its rune carvings and ice clinging to its ceiling even with the fall sun shining on it. He thinks briefly about turning back, returning to the life he knows, when suddenly he hears a voice.

He doesn't even take the time to think about the tales that told of a voice as warm and loving as a lover's embrace and how the demon had used it time and time again. Because surely, _surely _something with a voice like this was a sight worth dying for.

* * *

He wakes up to the sound of crashing. He breathes in the air around him and wonders how long he slept. Time has no meaning for him anymore, at least not in the traditional sense. He's been in this damnable ice for so long he tends to just sleep as long as nobody is there to entertain him. The first hundred years he'd be raging against those priests, trying to free himself, to break the ice.

But it was useless. That stupid ice wouldn't budge and so he was stuck just waiting around until the next stupid human would be drawn to him.

_I didn't sleep too long I don't think_, judging by the decay of the bodies littering the bottom of the cave and the smell in the air it was fall now. The last time he remembers being awake it had been in spring.

_Well, here goes nothing_, He can hear the slight shuffling at the entrance to his prison cell, the tentative footsteps. He is awake now and he wont let that fool turn back and ruin his fun _now_.

"Who goes there?" he asks, with his voice modulated to carry, to sound like a song, like your mother and your father and your lover at the same time. He had hated his voice, once upon a time, always too soft, too high for the demon he wanted to be seen as. It had been Santana, who had scoffed and told him to stop moping and use the beautiful voice he had been giving to do his dirty work for him.

And he did, seducing, manipulating, getting people to listen and walk off a cliff if he needed them to.

"Um, " Aha, his prey walking into view, "Hi?" The stranger stares at him with a dumb look of awe on his face. Great he got one of the slow ones.

"Um, wow." the stranger lets that out on a breath of air and if he hadn't forgotten how to, he'd be blushing at the blatant appreciation in that sound, that face. He has the irrational urge to turn his head away, so he stares at the stranger straight on, out of spite. Also, there is just so far he can move his head to the side, completely encased in ice as he is.

The stranger is a bit on the short side, at least judging by the humans that normally come to his cave. But maybe this is average height, because he also knows that nobody ever came to his cave with those types of clothes. Normally they come with swords and armor or clothing stained by long travel. Not that armor or weapons ever helped them.

"Hum," looks like he got his bearing, "Hello, my name is Blaine. How about you." he says with a huge, blinding grin on his admittedly very attractive face.

"What?" he asks with a flat voice because this _boy, _this _Blaine_ could not be serious. There was slow and then there was suicidally oblivious.

"Your name? I mean-" Blaine bites his lip and it may have been hundreds of years, but he is still not as desperate as to notice the looks of a _human _and his body better listen to him_ "_do you have names? I don't want to be insensitive."

And he looks at him with such an entreating, open face that clearly says that he didn't mean to cause offense and he's oh so sorry if he did. And that is just so beyond anything he had expected that he finds himself answering.

"Of course we have _names_, don't be stupid." he scoffs and then is appalled at himself, because what is he doing, _responding_ to this clearly unhinged human.

Blaine looks as if he gave him a gift, grinning even wider. "So then, if I may ask, what is it? I don't want to keep calling you "demon" in my head, that seems so disrespectful."

This is jut beyond ridiculous and he can still not stop himself from looking away first, "Those damnable priests called me Blood, so I suppose that is my name."

"Huh," and Blaine sounds disappointed, what the hell. "But don't you have a name that is more personal? What did your friends, your family call you? Before you were here, I mean."

His...his friends. His family. Nobody, at least nobody human, had ever asked, they all assume that clearly the ice-cold demon doesn't have anything resembling a family. But he can still remember and it still _hurts_, time hadn't dulled the pain of memory at all, the throbbing empty place where he just _missed _them.

"Kurt" he hears himself say, looking at those wounds that never stopped bleeding, not really, just stayed ignored in the five hundred years he's been _stuck _here, not knowing if they were alright, if the priests had gotten to them after all, ever after he had given himself up, after they had _promised. _But it wasn't like you could ever trust humans to keep their words. "They called me Kurt."

"Kurt?" and the sound of his name in a different voice than his own throws him out of the past into the present. In any voice since he had stopped thinking of it as his name, because there was nobody here to call him that, nobody he would have cared to know it. And he curses himself, what is he thinking just giving out his name to a _human. _Names are power to demons, you can do so much with a demon's real name and he just gave it away.

"That's a beautiful name." he looks up, into that sun kissed face, that man who doesn't belong here with his soft clothes and warm voice that reminds him of the sky outside, of _before_. "It suits you."

Maybe he'd hold off on killing this one after all, if only to investigate the apparent and inexplicably reemergence of the blush that he'd thought banished a thousand years ago.

* * *

_This was an _excellent_ idea._ Blaine looks around and then stops because those bones are clearly human bones and he'd just rather not think about that too much. Instead he looks again at the demon, at _Kurt_. Because those stories were really underselling him. Though to be fair, anyone would be hard pressed to put the sheer radiance and beauty into words if they tried.

Kurt just looks perfect, with a perfectly shaped face, long hair like spun gold and those eyes. They seem to shift in color, depending on his moods. Blaine doesn't understand how anyone could have seen them and want to describe them as cold, because to him they sparkled, like water, like life.

He finally looks around, trying to find a place to sit. He finally settles for a ledge a bit higher up, slightly under where Kurt is stuck to the wall. Everything aside from his face, upper body and one arm is fully embedded in the ice that looks more like a tree than anything else. Only the chill it gives off betrays its true nature. Even from 10 feet away he can feel the cold it radiates. He gets the blanket he brought with him and settles in.

"You have got to be kidding me." Kurt says. "Are you settling in?!"

"Well, I came all the way here, clearly I'm not going to just _leave_." he replies. It's pretty obvious to him. "You can't tell me you mind the company, I mean if nothing else you must be bored here."

"I can't believe this," Kurt mutters, "Do I really need to explain this to you?"

"Explain what?" If his life taught him anything it was that often enough playing dumb was the easier choice.

"I'm a demon, you are a human. I kill your kind." Kurt looks as if he'd like to rub his forehead in consternation, if he only had a free hand to do so. "You should be running away ,afraid I'm going to eat you, not getting comfortable."

"_Are_ you going to eat me?" It's mostly curiosity that makes him ask, he doesn't really care after all.

Something about that must have shown on his face, because Kurt looks disturbed for a second before his features smooth out again into unconcern.

"No," he snorts delicately, "I don't actually eat people, I don't know who came up with that one. It would be so _messy_ for one." Kurt says that with such a look of utter distaste, Blaine can't help but laugh.

"See, everything's fine then." he settles back on his hands.

"Everything is _not_ fine." Kurt hisses, "I can't believe you! What was your plan, come here, hope that on some off-chance I _wont_ eat you and all for what? To ask my name?!"

"I also wanted to know a lot of other things, like what do you do when you get bored?" Blaine says mildly, "And if you ever get cold and how long you've been here. Those types of things."

Kurt looks as if he wants dearly to strangle him and suddenly the long hair framing his face starts moving, shaping into hand shapes.

"Whoa!, "Blaine springs up, snatching one of the hair ropes out of the air before it can reach his neck- "Are you doing that? That is so cool!" Because seriously. The hair proceeded to curl cautiously around his hand and arm, while the second section hovers indecisively in the air next to his head.

"I – yes," Kurt seems sort of dumbfounded, staring at him with his mouth open. He looks at Blaine as if he has never seen anything like him before. Which obviously couldn't be farther from the truth, because as humans went, Blaine is nothing special, probably so ordinary it was hard for Kurt to separate him from all the other humans he has seen in his life.

He inspects the hair winding around his forearm a bit closer and stops short. Because that shimmer. Surely it isn't what he thinks it is.

"Why are the ends red?" he asks with trepidation.

"It's blood" Well, there go his doubts, apparently. He tries to release the hair from his grasp, but the rope just coils tighter around him.

"Huh." he strokes the strands, because they are so soft and by the hair clearly liked it, judging by their behaviour

"That's all the reaction you are going to have?" Kurt exclaims.

"What do you want me to say?" he answers raising his eyes back to Kurt's face.

"How about asking me why I killed those people with my _hair_, " he sounds oddly distressed, "and then gibber away from me in terror."

"Why should I? You forget that I expected you to kill me where I stand the moment I entered the cave so this is already going miles better than I anticipated." he answers truthfully. For one he is still standing. Also hair as soft as silk is now seemingly petting him, so yes, clearly this is a win for him.

"You expected me to - " Kurt's hair suddenly vanish from around his limbs, seemingly sinking into the ice around him. "Great. Another suicidal one. Sorry, but I'm not going to be the one to kill you. Find a cliff, if you are that eager to die. Now go aw-"

"I'm not suicidal" Blaine interrupts. It's very important to him to make that clear, because he really _isn't_. He just has a special relationship with his mortality.

"Right?" Kurt says in a skeptical tone, "And the fact that you went into a cave expecting a monster to murder you on the spot speaks of your clear mind and will to live. Spare me. I know your type,"weirdly he sounds almost disappointed," they show up every decade or so, thinking a demon killing them will in some way be a better form of suicide than just running into a knife."

"I don't want to die, believe me" Blaine says quietly.

"And why should I? Because if that's the case, why are you _here_?" he sounds so sad that Blaine can do nothing than respond with the truth. Maybe he owes him this.

"I don't want to die," he repeats, "but it's not really my choice anymore."

"What does that mean?" Kurt asks.

He swallows around the lump in his throat, summoning up a smile. "I'm sick. Really sick. There is something wrong with my heart. Nothing anyone can do anymore. I could die at any moment without warning." he looks into Kurt's piercing, beautiful eyes "So I may not want to die, but I still will."

* * *

Kurt looks at the weird human who stumbled into his cave. He doesn't know what to say. Death isn't totally unknown to him, but it was always priests or an angry mob who overwhelmed one of them. To just have your body failing you that way – it's inconceivable.

"Please, I promise I wont be a bother, but please can I just stay here for a while?" Blaine asks, still with that quiet smile on his face

There should be desperation on that face or anger or at least relentless cheer. Not this blank accepting facade. He suddenly wants to do _something_. Reach out, shake him anything to just make feel Blaine better in some way, to get him out of this unnatural state of _just not caring._

Which doesn't make sense at all. He hasn't cared about the feelings or conditions of a human for centuries. They are all the same to him: lying, untrustworthy creatures, nothing to do with him.

"If that's what you want." he says absently. He can't do anything else. Blaine clearly doesn't expect sympathy, certainly not pity, judging by the bland way he had given the news.

In answer Blaine's face splits in a grin so wide and _happy_, Kurt finds himself unconsciously twitching his fingers in an aborted attempt to reach out, to brush against it and find out if it would feels as warm to the touch as it looks. It's such a difference to his blank face and it somehow seems right. As if this is the way Blaine should always, always look like.

"Thank you so much! You wont regret it, I promise, I'll be excellent company, you'll see." Just as he's glaring his hair back, because they had in that brief moment of his madness tried to pull Blaine closer and had gotten as far as curling around his waist, Blaine lets out a jaw cracking yawn.

"Sorry," he says a blush staining his cheeks, and it's really unfair how _fetching_ that looks on him. "And just after I said I'd be good company. I guess the hike up here took more energy than I thought."

"You can take a nap, if you want to." Clearly his mouth is working absolutely independently of his brain today. He misses the use of his hands every moment he's awake but it _has_ been a while since he wants to have them so he can bury his face. "It's not like I'm going anywhere." he adds to save face.

"Well, if you're sure..?" Blaine asks again.

"I'm sure, but it's not going to be comfortable, you certain you wouldn't rather go back to your village?"

"No, here will be fine, I'm prepared" Blaine says, ruffling through his bag, pulling out another blanket and taking both of them to a corner near him.

"Good night; Kurt." And just like that he curls up and is asleep within minutes.

Fast asleep, in plain sight of him and in clear reach of his hair. Even after he knows what he is capable of, what he can expect from him.

"Now you've done it, Kurt." he says to himself. Blaine doesn't seem to notice.

Here he is with a human in his cave, and he doesn't have even one clue what to do about him. To make matters worse, every time he tries to think of a solution, of something to make him leave he and he happens to look at Blaine – the way his lashes are so long they cast shadows on his face or his lips that are ever so slightly parted, glistening with a slightly wet sheen -

Kurt shakes his head. _This is getting ridiculous_.

He's a mature demon and it had been a thousand years since he'd last let himself get distracted like this by a pretty face. But even getting his mind away from Blaine's attractiveness, he can't forget the way he had looked ever so slightly desperate under the blank facade, when he asked him to stay. As if Kurt was his last hope and if he made him leave he may just be driven to that cliff after all.

Which doesn't make any sense either. Blaine is clearly a likeable, good looking young man. And even if he is … sick – and Kurt doesn't even want to think about that.

Still, why Blaine wouldn't choose to spend his last days with his friends, his family, why he would instead choose to come _here_. There must be a reason.

_And I'll find it out._ Because surely this is nothing but curiosity on his end, nothing but a slightly interesting development in the endless monotony that his life has become. After he solves the mystery, he'll be fine scaring Blaine away from him and he can go back to waiting for the one, who will finally _finally_, provide him with the opportunity to escape this prison.

Until then, Kurt supposes, this is as good a way as any to pass the time. And if he can ignore the quite frankly _adorable_ sounds Blaine makes in his sleep, he could even convince himself of that.

* * *

Blaine wakes up to the sounds of singing. He is normally a fast riser, but something about the voice, makes him want to stay asleep a little while longer. It's clear and gentle and it makes Blaine want to smile and burrow deeper into his bed.

Which is now that he thinks about it a whole lot harder than he's used to. With a start Blaine remembers where he is, that he has made the trek to the mountain cave and who must be the one singing. He carefully cracks one eye open, so he doesn't disturb Kurt and make him stop singing. He has his head turned slightly away from Blaine and his eyes seem to peer far away, beyond the walls of the cave. His hair moving slightly to the melody and the ice shining with a light that comes from within, because the sun doesn't reach here and - Blaine realizes - because it's already night.

He can't make out the words, as it's in a language he has never heard, but the melody is haunting and wistful. It makes Blaine's throat tighten, makes him want to move, to run, just to make sure he _can, _that he's still _here._ But even though his eyes tear up, it's beautiful. _Kurt_ is beautiful. Even if he has to die here, even if Kurt decides he is a bother and kills him after all, it will have been worth it, just for this moment alone. For the opportunity to meet such an exceptional creature like Kurt, to hear his voice and have him look at him.

The only thing he'd regret, would be to never see him smile, but maybe he can accomplish that before the end comes. Right now he'll just enjoy the music sounding all around him, so pure it seems to actually reach inside him and warm him from there.

Kurt doesn't actually sing very often. It's a good way to pass the time, but he just isn't in the mood that often. Singing reminds him of home, of everything he has lost. Even though demons lived a very long time, there is no guarantee that when – if – he gets out of here, his father, his friends, his _clan_ will still be there.

Seeing Blaine lying there so defenseless, so heartbreakingly mortal made all the fears he had about never seeing them again rise to the surface and he found himself singing, the same song that he had sung at his mothers funeral, a lifetime ago.

He doesn't think it would disturb Blaine, who had after all slept soundly through the moles that had come to inspect him, but just as he gets to the last verse he notices him shifting. He stops abruptly, feeling strangely caught and uncomfortable with the thought that Blaine has heard him sing.

Blaine for his part opens his eyes fully and says, "You didn't have to stop. You have an amazing voice."

And there is the blush again, right on queue, great. How Blaine can just _say_ these things with a straight face and seemingly no problem he doesn't understand.

"Sleep well?" He dares Blaine to comment on the obvious change of subject. Thankfully he goes along with it, the slight smile on his lips the only indication that he's a little bit amused by the artless execution.

"Yes" he stretches, exposing his stomach, which nearly makes Kurt miss the next question, "How long was I asleep this time?"

"10 hours, give or take." he answers.

"What?!" Blaine cries out, getting to his feet. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I've been here a week, and I feel like all I do is sleep, even though I said I would keep you company"

"There is nothing to be sorry for." Kurt says, "I've been without company longer, it doesn't bother me." which is a lie, but normally humans are much less entertaining. Blaine's obvious distress makes him smile despite himself.

"Don't worry, Blaine, seriously, stop fretting." Blaine stops immediately mid-motion, looking at him with wonder in his face.

"You said my name." Blaine says giddily, actually bounding up to him. "Say it again. Please." he adds.

"What – Why," Blaine is suddenly very close and how does he manage to turn the tables so completely and make Kurt feel this unbalanced? "What's so special about me saying your name?"

"I don't know. It just sounds _right_, coming out of your mouth, you know?" Blaine says, having moved even closer.

"No, I don't know." It was supposed to come out assertive, but instead his voice sounds just breathy to his ears. Blaine's eyes are mesmerizing this close, an ever shifting hue of brown, green mixed with a hint of gold and Kurt just can not look away.

"Just once, please? For me?" Blaine is speaking lower too, as if this is a precious secret that he wants to keep close to his heart, eyes flickering to Kurt's lips.

"_Blaine -_" The name slips out and this close he can see Blaine give a full body shudder. He swallows. He has never had this effect on anyone before, not without _meaning_ to, just by saying their name. It's intoxicating.

He's just about to repeat the name, just to see how Blaine will react next, when there's an audible crack echoing through the cave.

Blaine startles and the spell breaks. They both look at what has made the sound and it's a bone that Blaine has accidentally stepped on, lying close to his prison. It's like a bucket of ice water. What is he _doing_.

"I killed that guy." he says, without inflection. He just needs Blaine to understand what he has gotten himself into, because he can't do this and surely Blaine wont want to after he really understood what Kurt is.

"Why?" Blaine asks. Kurt flinches back.

"Why what?" he laughs without mirth, "I'm a demon, did you forget? He walked in here and I killed him. Simple as that."

"Hey," Blaine says quietly, closing the distance between them once more, cautiously putting his hand on Kurt's cheek and that – that's just unfair is what it is. No one has touched, just touched Kurt since he has been stuck in there. It makes something inside him crumble, makes him look helplessly into Blaine's eyes.

"I know you aren't like that, don't try to scare me away." he says.

"How do you know I'm not like that?" Kurt asks, "You don't know me. This could all be an act, I could just like playing with my food."

"I don't think so," Blaine huffs out a breath. He's so close it warms Kurt's face, "You don't eat humans, remember? You told me."

"That could have been a lie, too." It wasn't, but Blaine can't _know_ that.

"Even if it was, it wouldn't matter." Blaine smiles and it's like the sun, like what he rememberes the sun being like, "Meeting you, hearing you _sing_. It would be worth it. I wouldn't mind you killing me or eating me. I would be happy to be of use to you."

"You-" Blaine takes his breath away, because he can see how sincere he is, how he means that. How can he _mean_ that, how can Kurt have done anything, anything in that short a time to deserve this? He moves his hand to Blaine's cheek. He can barely feel it through the ice and Blaine shivers from the cold, but he just can't help himself.

"You didn't answer my question, why did you kill these people?" And for some reason he doesn't want to lie to Blaine, doesn't feel like he can with him this close.

"They attacked me. I'm somewhat famous and "vanquishing" me would apparently mean a lot for the adventurer of today. And- "he lets out a breath and says quietly, "I thought killing them would get me out of here?"

That makes Blaine start slightly. "How so?"

"When I was sealed here, the priest who did it told me that the only thing that would free me was the tear crystal." If he tries he can still see his face in front of him, the way it had looked, not distorted by hatred like the other ones, only sad and determined. "The tear crystal is supposed to grant the wish of whoever possesses it."

"Why would you get it from the humans who come here?" Blaine asks.

"The tear crystal only forms out of the purest of all tears. So the fear of death, that moment when you are _sure_ you are going to die, this is the moment you would shed a tear of pure emotion." So he scared them. Scared them badly. They didn't all die, the humans that came to kill him, but most of them did.

"At first I just wasn't able to use my powers effectively enough, trapped in here. I wanted them to be close to death, but stop before actually killing them, but it didn't always work." he can't stop, even though he knows that this can be the thing that might convince Blaine to stay away from him, "and later I just didn't _care_. I didn't care if they lived or died. They came here to kill me after all, so they deserved everything they got. I don't even feel bad for doing it."

There it is. He _doesn't _care if some random humans dies. Why should he? They have done nothing but hunt his kind down, imprisoned him because he has dared to protect those close to him. And even now that they have taken his freedom from him, they still come, never leaving him be. But this one human. This one for some reason he cares about. This one with the smile like the sun, is different.

* * *

Blaine is shocked, but only for an instant. And then he berates himself. He knew that the demon killed people. If the stories hadn't already said so, finding countless bones in here was evidence enough.

But he thought, what, that Kurt regrets it? That some other being, someone else than this well spoken, sharp person, who sings like an angel and blushes at his touch, is responsible for it. He needs to face reality. Kurt is a demon. Blaine is fascinated by him, wants to be as close as possible, but that doesn't change anything.

And from what Kurt has and hasn't said, he clearly doesn't have any reason to feel remorse for those humans. They attacked him, after already sealing him away, and all for what? Glory? Bragging rights? It should make Blaine afraid, but all it does is make him angry, angry at those thoughtlessly attacking Kurt, even though it should be clear to anyone with eyes that he isn't some mindless beast.

He should tell Kurt that, tell him that it doesn't matter, doesn't matter to him at all that the hair curled around his waist is also responsible for the dead people littering the floor.

"I would cry that tear for you, if I could." he says instead. It's just as true. If he could make himself so afraid of death, he would gladly give his life so that Kurt can be free. Because clearly this is the real tragedy, the fact that someone like Kurt, someone so wonderful and radiant is locked away from the world.

But he has lived with the reality of his own mortality for too long. While he doesn't want to die, wants to scream at the heavens sometimes about the unfairness of it all, it doesn't make him afraid.

Kurt looks up at his proclamation and his face is suddenly more open and vulnerable than at any time before, gratitude warring with a shy light of wonder. And then he smiles.

"I know you would, Blaine, but I wouldn't ever ask it of you." The smile combined with the sound of his name makes him shiver down to his toes. He closes the distance between them, touching their foreheads together.

They just breath with each other for several minutes and it would have been enough. It should be enough, but he just can't stop himself from looking at the slightly parted lips that are still curled into a smile.

"Is this ok?" he breathes into the space between them. And he sees Kurt shiver, slightly, almost unnoticeable. It makes him groan out loud. The next thing he knows Kurt has closed the rest of the distance between them and they are kissing.

An explosion goes off behind his suddenly closed eyelids. He can't concentrate on anything but on how absurdly soft Kurt's lips are. They're slightly cool to the touch, but he's grateful for it, because he feels like he's burning up. This isn't his first kiss, but it might as well be.

After what feels like a too short eternity, he has to break the kiss, to pull in some air. Kurt lets out slight puffs of breath, amidst butterfly kisses to every part of his face he can reach. Blaine feels like he can't breath.

"I want to be able to feel you." Kurt groans in frustration. "This damn ice, it numbs all sensation."

Blaine whimpers. "If I could break you free, I would." Kurt surges forward, meshing their mouths together. This, this is what he had come here for.

They have to stop eventually, because the angle is becoming too uncomfortable for both of them.

"I should have brought a footstool." Blaine complains, looking up at Kurt's form.

"Or you could grow a few extra inches." Kurt retorts with a mischievous smile.

"I'm perfectly average height, I'll have you know." he answers.

"Yes, I'm sure." Kurt snorts, "So, my dear perfectly average seized man, what now?"

"What do you mean?" he asks.

"It's been more than a week since you came here, your supplies should be depleted. What are you going to do?" he adds quietly: "You probably didn't expect to survive this long, but you have and I would really like it to stay that way."

And so, Blaine realizes, does he. He may have not wanted to die, he didn't lie about that, but he was prepared for it. Emotionally ready. But now for the first time he feels something he hasn't for a while. He wants to _live. _He has finally, finally found something, someone who it is worth it to fight for.

"Me too," he says before his vision goes black.

* * *

"Me too" he hears Blaine answer and for the first time he believes it. He's going through the logistics in his head, clearly Blaine can't stay in the cave indefinitely, but maybe he can build a cottage next to it when he hears a thump.

He looks over and sees Blaine on the ground. Unmoving.

"Blaine?" he asks "Blaine?!"

"BLAINE!" he screams and suddenly the ice, for the first time in half a century, begins to crack. He doesn't even really notice, just pulls desperately, because he needs to be closer, he needs to be at Blaine's side _right now_.

He told him repeatedly over the week that he should go somewhere else, that the cold air may not be affecting Kurt, but it couldn't be good for Blaine's body.

"Blaine, please Blaine, answer me!" He reaches with his free arm, just barely touching Blaine's face with the tip of his finger. He's cold. One thing about Blaine, the thing he had noticed from the first moment was how warm he is. He's like a furnace, like the sun, even with the ice in his veins he could feel it. Now he can barely feel anything at all, as if Blaine's body has the same temperature as the ice around him. That can't be good.

He strains himself, hoping to gain a few more inches just so he can maybe pull him lose when with a crack the last of the ice gives away and he tumbles out of the prison that has held him straight onto Blaine's body. His lifeless body.

"No, no, no, no. Not like this." he can't stop touching Blaine, now that he can, but it doesn't change anything. He doesn't respond, doesn't move. "Not now, please Blaine you can't do this to me."

He has a hand over Blaine's chest and he waits for those reassuring thumps. And waits.

"No, you can't do this to me, you just can't, we didn't even really have the chance to start." He pulls Blaine closer, pressing his head against his own chest. "You still need to tell me why you want care, but never sympathy. And what foods you like. There are still so many songs that I want to sing to you, didn't you say you wanted to hear them all?!"

"Was it a lie? Did you lie to me all this time?!" he shakes Blaine, "Answer me!"

Something between them starts to glow. At first it just looks like a fraction of light, but it grows larger until it's like a tiny star between their bodies.

Kurt hasn't even noticed he has started crying.

He laughs hysterically, because all this time, all these centuries and it has always been _his_ tears?! And now that he finally has it, it's of no use, because he's already free, but he would give it up in a heartbeat if he could only have Blaine back.

"Go away, I don't need you." he spits at the tiny circle of light, "what I need is for Blaine to _not be dead!"_

He curls closer to the body in his arms, the light of the tear crystal slowly dying away. His hand splays over the chest without a beat, the one where Blaine's broken, perfect heart should be skipping erratically.

And suddenly he feels it. A puff of breath against his collarbone. He pulls back.

Even though there's no reassuring thump under his hand, Blaine is slowly breathing in and out.

"Blaine?" he asks tentatively, jostling him a bit in his arms.

And the body in his arms stirs, Blaine slowly opening his eyes.

"Kurt?" he asks. "Kurt!", he shoots up, grasping his arms while Kurt just sits there, slack-jawed. "How did you get out? That's amazing!" he pulls Kurt close and kisses him. Kurt responds, but he's distracted by the fact that there's still no pulse under his hands.

Blaine pulls back. "What happened, the last thing I remember is you still in the ice and then everything went black and - " he hesitates, "Kurt were you crying?"

_There is a tale_

"I don't cry." he answers automatically. It was always true before.

_A tale about a demon without blood or tears._

Blaine grins at him and he can't help himself, because he can finally reach out _touch _him, like he has wanted all this time.

_A demon encased in a prison as icy as his heart._

He uses his hands, to follow the contours of Blaine's face, the one he has spent hours just gazing at when Blaine slept. Touching those lashes, the nose that is slightly flat. The plump lips.

_Cold claws and a beautiful face that led thousands into ruin._

And, even though the heart under his hand still doesn't beat, the skin is as warm as he remembers the sun outside being. "It's probably just melted ice," he mumbles while wiping his face clean.

_Trapped until the eternal ice around him finally melts._

- the end -


End file.
